Court Rules Against Online Anonymity 314
cstacy writes "The Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled (PDF) that people leaving negative feedback for a carpet cleaning service are not allowed to remain anonymous. Yelp must unmask seven critics to the carpet cleaner, who feels that they might not even be real customers."
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of Yelp is to collect negative reviews so they can get paid to remove them.
The door swings both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this mean that people leaving positive feedback should also be unmasked?
Seriously, I completely avoid any service that has all 4/5 and 5/5 stars because in real life at least one person would find fault with it.
I can kind of see it (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm a small business owner, I don't want my competitors to be submitting fake negative reviews against me.
It might make sense to have both named and anonymous reviews, with the anonymous ones grouped separately. Then the viewer can decide which ones to look at.
Escrow of sorts (Score:5, Insightful)
If the goal of the unmasking is to determine whether the Yelp complainers were actual customers (as the fine article states) couldn't the judge be provided the names of the Yelpers and the list of Mr. Hadeed's customers and make that determination without revealing their identities to Mr. Hadeed or the public at large? (I'm not saying it's morally or legally correct for anyone to know the identity of the Yelpers, but this would seem preferable to telling Mr. Hadeed who the complaining customers were, enabling him to harrass them.)
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Shhh, you're ruining their carefully cleaned memory of a perfect past. Less than a decade after "I have lists!" McCarthy hearings either.
The court could protect the reviewers privacy and (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"No company's terms of service can override the law"
I see you're new here. Welcome to America!
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because thing A used to be better doesn't mean that thing B used to be better too. Can't we look at the past and say "This was good, but that was bad"?
Re:I can kind of see it (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I see a lot of people talking about free speech and quoting the constitution, but ignoring libel & defamation. Being able to speak anonymously as a whistleblower or protester is one thing; ruining the reputation of a person or business with falsehoods is quite another.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, but the point of k6mfw's post was that "the constitution" were secured in the past, and it really wasn't in any meaningful way.
How About Protecting Consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Escrow of sorts (Score:2, Insightful)
Give him a mask... (Score:3, Insightful)
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Re:Skynet (Score:3, Insightful)
4chan run's itself.
KNOCK IT OFF. LEARN TO APOSTROPHE.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. - yes, no shit, Slashdot. It was meant to be yelling.
Re:Give him a mask... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the internet, if you give him a mask "he will start trolling".
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
I would juxtapose that with the advertisements these very same businesses often use with "Fake" customers (actors) that claim how great the service is on television and on the radio. If the business is allowed to make False statements of fact regarding the quality of their services and have it protected by the first amendment, how can the public be denied the same right? I do not see how this is any different that the very same businesses fraudulent claims in advertising.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether the reviews are true or not may very well depend on the identity of the supposed reviewer. If it's in the form of "they destroyed my carpet", the cleaning service could either try to prove that this has not happened to any customers ever, or that this review did not come from a customer to whom it actually happened. If it's not a real customer, then it's probably a competitor, and at that point, it's very much libel -- purposefully spreading lies for the purpose of damaging someone else's reputation. Reviews like this really do matter to a small business. If they reveal the identities and discover it was a real customer and a real experience, there's nothing legally they could do to remove it, because it wouldn't be libel, and would be protected. But they also can't do anything about it now, until they prove it's false, which requires them to reveal identities.
The alternate solution might be for all review systems to say "this review is anonymous [better: not a verified identity], so the person being reviewed really has no opportunity to face his accuser, so you should take this with a really big grain of salt". And maybe not even count it in the averaged star-rating. And then you've just killed their business model, because the identity/registration stuff is such a hurdle.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but the legal system usually requires the plaintiff to show harm in order to have standing. Is there harm in a false positive review? Maybe to a competitor, or to the class of Yelp users, but it's much harder to argue for a case.
This is by design. It's a justice system, not a legislative system.
Yes, there are exceptions where standing is automatic, but they don't apply here yet and would need be legislated.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
So again, if they can lie about how good they are, lie about how bad everyone else is, then why can't other people lie about how bad they are?
They can. They just can't do it anonymously for the reason I'll elucidate in a second.
I think Libelous speech should be protected, despite the supreme courts previous rulings.
You've got to be kidding. So if I make up scandalous lies about you that cost you your job and your wife and maybe gets you some prison time for good measure, there's nothing you should be able to do about it?
Of course I expect now you'll say that by "protected" you'll mean there can't be limitations on saying something but there can be "consequences" that would be a deterrent to people speaking in the first place. Well, that's what this case also says. The anonymous posters weren't prevented from speaking, but there may be consequences -- which requires knowing who said it so the consequences can be applied.
Oh, by the way, you'll note that this case revolves around commercial speech, upon which different standards apply that are fully constitutional.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)